A Supernatural Fairytale
by ColtsAndQuiills
Summary: Once upon a time there was a boy who had a heart of gold and a home of mud. His parents were gone, as was often the way in these sorts of tales, and he was left alone to care for his younger brother. It seemed as though life would always be like this, but then something unexpected happened: one day, he met an angel.


ONCE upon a time there was a boy who had a heart of gold and a home of mud. His parents were gone, as was often the way in these sorts of tales, and he was left alone to care for his younger brother.

He spent most of his days hunting in the woods, wandering dark passages of the forest that few others dared to enter. Most of what he caught was sold for thin coppers in the marketplace, though whenever possible, he made certain to save enough to keep his brother fed, even if it meant he often went to bed with his own stomach in complaint.

It seemed as though life would always be like this, one day after the next of the dirt, the darkness, the struggle to survive, but then something unexpected happened: one day, he met an angel.

At first he tried to kill it with his hunting knife. He was not a cruel boy, but he was a hungry boy, and the price charged for the angel's beautiful feathers would keep him and his brother well-fed for a month. However, much to his surprise, the angel plucked the blade free as if it were nothing more than a sewing needle.

"What are you?" the boy asked. He sounded brave, but in his heart he was a little frightened.

"An angel," the angel replied.

The boy took this into consideration. His mother had spoken of angels, but this was not the figure that her words called to mind. This angel's jaw was coarse rather than the almost effeminate porcelain of those in the stories. His wings were not spun of heavenly clouds, but as black and thick as a winter's night. The voice was wrong as well — more suited to dim taverns and dark ales than silvery harps and song.

He was, however, quite beautiful in his own way, and angels were supposed to be beautiful, or so the boy had been told.

"Why are you here?" the boy asked.

The angel watched him for a moment, both insulted and amused by his boldness. He decided this was a boy worth testing.

"I have brought you a gift. With it, you can change your destiny."

The boy's life had not been kind to him. Such a thing sounded like a miracle, and miracles only existed in the tales he told his brother to soothe him to sleep.

"What kind of gift?" he asked.

The angel held out his hand, and suddenly, magically, a crystal cup was within his fist. The foliage was thick overhead, but the small cup seemed to cast a light of its own, one that reflected in the angel's eyes and made the boy think of sunlight dappled waters.

"Fill this with water and drink of it, and you will be blessed. Then, you must go to the King. He grows old in years and is without children. Tell him to put upon you three trials. They will prove your worth."

These words did not bring the boy any joy, for the King was feared throughout many kingdoms for his cruelty. It was fabled you could hear the screams of those who displeased him echo in the halls throughout the night.

But louder than the wails haunting the boy's imagination were the memories of his brother's hungry cries from the night before.

"You ask me to choose death," the boy said, but in truth, he knew he had already made his choice.

The angel did not speak, his face as still as twilight.

"Why should I believe you?" the boy pressed.

"Because I have decided to believe in you," the angel replied.

The boy took the cup, and the angel disappeared. If not for the strangely warm crystal he held to his chest, it would be easy to convince himself he had never been there to begin with.

He brought the cup to the river, where he filled it to the brim, argued with himself that God was a fairytale, and then drank the chalice dry.

—-

The next morning he set out on the road with his brother. They were both in good spirits, as the day was pleasantly warm and they had no belongings save the clothes on their backs to weigh them down. The stars seemed to shine brighter on the evenings of their travel, and despite the approach of winter's grim sojourn, they had the good fortune of finding sweet berries to keep their appetites quelled.

On the third day, they reached their destination. The castle was tragically lovely, its grey walls mottled with thorned roses and intricate sculptures of angels and demons in epic battle, but the boy found it somehow jarring — a jagged blot against an otherwise perfect sky. The guards who stood at its entrance wore helms that hid their faces, making their eyes seem jeweled and black from within the iron's shadow.

"I'm here to see the King," the boy announced.

The men laughed scornfully, but rather than be discouraged, the boy stood taller, chin raised.

"I was sent by the angel. I'm here to be tested three times to prove my worth as a successor to the kingdom."

At this their jeering ceased.

"Very well," one announced. "But the other must remain behind."

The boy did not wish to be separated from his brother, yet he thought this perhaps for the best. He knelt beside the smaller boy, drawing confidence from the trust in his eyes and drawing strength from the shoulders, so sharp and thin, that he clutched tightly in an embrace.

"I will return to you by morning at the latest. Go to the inn we passed and offer to help in its stables. Take what bread or shelter they spare, stay out of trouble, and I'll return with a better life for us."

He pressed a kiss to his brother's forehead and took his leave, unable to know the terror that dawn would bring.

—-

"Very well. Three tests, to prove your worth. Let us bear witness to your value, and you shall inherit this kingdom."

The King was not at all what the boy expected. There before him was not a mountain of a man, battle-worn and scarred, but a svelte figure clad neatly and unadorned in black. His voice did not elicit visions of war cries on the field, but stories of the devil bartering over souls after midnight.

This was not a lion, but an adder.

"My Lord." The boy, prostrated on one knee, dared to raise his head for the first time since making his request. His eyes met the King's, and the taste of the river filled his mouth, and the warmth of the crystal cup lingered on his lips.

"Eat your fill. Sleep in comfort. Tonight, have a taste of the riches to come, and by morning we shall begin."

The boy froze, worried for his brother, but it was no one's place to argue with the King. He would have to give word to one of the castle's servants, and hope that the promise of sharing his future wealth would be enough to bribe for the passing of a message.

That night, he prayed.

Neither heaven nor angels broke the silence that followed.

—-

"Rested? Full?" the King asked.

"Yes," the boy lied. Sleep had not come easily, and he could not bring himself to eat his full knowing his brother lay sleeping with an empty stomach among the stink of animals.

"Very good. It would be rude of me to waste any more of your time, so let us begin."

The boy's eyes darted nervously about the room, awaiting to be accosted by either riddle or weapon. Men and women lined the walls, both peasant and noblemen, for all had been invited to witness this newest claim to the throne. Their faces seemed hungry for his failure, so he tried to not pay them any mind.

"Brother!"

A child's voice rang out in the hall, silencing the excited whispers shared among the spectators. To the boy, it sounded like the toll of a church bell at a funeral.

A guard held his brother's shoulder and pulled him roughly before the throne. In their wake trailed two women and three men, each bound at the wrist.

"My Lord?" the boy asked. The King smiled, and he felt as if a viper's fangs had found their way into his heart.

"This is your first test. Choose."

"What do you mean?" the boy replied, but he already understood.

"Who shall live? Your brother, or this faceless lot?" The King's lips lifted in a smile, but the mirth did not reach his eyes.

The boy couldn't bring himself to answer. Any word he tried to conjure tightened around his throat like a noose.

"My Lord King, what are their crimes?" he managed to stammer through a mouth gone dry.

"Crimes?" the King asked. A few chitters of laughter carried amid the crowd. "Why, they are innocent! Can the same be said of your brother?"

"Of course!" the boy cried.

"I thought as much. If one soul among these six were guilty, the decision would be easier, would it not? And there is no meaning to an easy test." The King's eyes moved to his brother, and without need of a command, the guard placed sharpened steel to his throat.

The child's eyes were wide with fear, but he neither cried nor struggled, and through his terror, the older boy felt a pang of pride.

"This is not a puzzle, boy. Who shall live? As I said before, I care not to waste time. Your brother, or these commoners? Choose now or I will have them all beheaded, here and now."

The boy regretfully cast his eyes to the group. One of the women was a girl in truth, no older than he. Her eyes flashed angrily beneath a sweep of blonde hair, and with dread the boy realized she already knew his answer.

"My brother," the boy said. His voice was hardly a whisper, but it seemed loud in the taut silence that had overtaken the room.

As a mercy, if what happened next could be called such a thing, their deaths were quick and clean. The girl's eyes, now empty of life, somehow retained their reproach as her head was laid at the boy's feet.

The King stood from his throne and raised his voice high. "A boy who would choose his family over the good of his own people. Is this the kind of man you wish to lead you?"

Jeers rose from the crowd, but the boy could not hear them. He couldn't hear anything, save for the King's declaration:

"Perhaps you will choose more wisely the next time, for two trials more await."

That evening, his brother was permitted to stay with him in his chamber. The child was curled up close beside him, but the boy felt no warmth.

He had lost not only a trial today, but something far more. Some piece of himself had bled away, as surely as those whose deaths he had wrought.

—-

"Your second trial should be a welcome one, for it is far more direct than the first," said the King.

A blindfold had been wrapped around the boy's eyes, and it was now removed. Blinking against the sudden brightness, a strange forest took shape before his eyes, its trees rising higher than any he had ever before seen.

"You must do one thing, and only that one thing: see yourself through to the opposite side. You may have as much time as you need. And to show that I am kind, I will not make you go alone."

The boy's heart hammered as he waited for his brother to be pulled into view. When, instead, another boy close to his own age was dragged forward, he could not stop from showing his surprise.

"Who is this?" the boy asked.

The King didn't even spare the stranger a look. "This is one, who I'm told, is disloyal and faithless. Those who pay no heed to service have not earned the right to keep a name."

This was strange to the boy, who believed a name was one of the few gifts that life gave at no cost. He peered at his new companion, trying to see the identity that had been stripped away. There was no clarity to be found, but more confusion, for when his eyes met the blue of the stranger's, he was struck by a sense of familiarity.

"Go, now," the King declared. "Your trial will be long enough without wasting further time here. You have my word that your brother will be protected while you are gone. Should you not survive, however, I owe him nothing."

As soon as the pair stepped within the thicket, the boy was aware that these woods were a place of magic. The trees and earth breathed not with the grace of the angel, but a power ancient and savage. Even the sunlight felt wrong, for it brought no warmth and stole color from the world, casting everything in the gunmetal grey light of summer storms. Only his companion's eyes seemed unchanged, their unyielding blue a tie to the wild, rich skies beyond this dark canopy.

For three months they wandered the wild landscape. They walked in one another's shadow, fought back-to-back against the nightmares that prowled the forest, took what rest they could huddled together against twisted oaks and mossy banks. This place had no use for words, so they exchanged little, save for one question that his companion repeatedly refused to satisfy:

"What's your name?"

"It does not matter."

The boy protested this answer every time, but his companion only regarded him with a gentle smile and took his arm to pull him onward.

As they finally reached their destination, dawn was yawning over a sharp rise in the land. The trees had thinned, and in the distance, they could see the King seated atop a black stallion, four horsemen at his side and a crowd gathered eagerly by his feet.

A cry suddenly rose from those surrounding the King, and for a brief moment, the boy imagined they were greeting them with a hero's welcome. He let out a whoop of triumph and turned to grin at his companion, but rather than a face of victory, his fellow traveler was looking back to the forest, brow lowered and mouth turned down. It was then that the boy realized the people's cheers were not kindly, but fearful.

"Run!" his companion screamed, and run they did, for from the forest black tendrils began to unfurl, flowing between the trunks like curls of smoke escaping a gap-toothed smile. Everything that the darkness touched was lost to death, and the scent of sulfur choked the screams of birds who tried to make a mad escape overhead.

The land turned traitorous, trembling beneath their feet. They bled from jagged rocks that scraped their arms and knees as they were pitched and rolled, but neither dared stop; behind them, the earth had begun to roar and break apart.

"We're almost there!" the boy shouted. They were close enough now to make out the flapping jaws and stamping feet of the excited crowd — close enough for the boy to hear one familiar voice rise above the rest, calling his name.

Knowing his brother was close drove him to run faster, to fight through the pain, and without meaning to, he passed his companion by several paces.

And that was when he heard his friend yelp in alarm.

The boy spun about, and with a speed that brought applause from some in the crowd, he managed to catch his companion's hand just as the earth opened wide to swallow him up.

"Let go!" his friend bellowed.

"No!" the boy roared, feeling the ground begin to slide away under his knees.

"You must, or we will both be lost!" his companion implored. "It is how it must be!"

At this, defiance flooded the boy's face, and for a moment, his friend saw the man he could one day become — a man who would bare his teeth at death, who could rage war against fate.

One day, but not now.

Now, the boy was just a boy, and he was too small and too weak from the journey to pull his friend to safety.

And so, his companion let go.

Afterward, the boy was placed on a horse with his brother so that all the crowd could look upon them.

"No matter the objective, it is a King's duty to bring an ambition to fruition. To abandon a cause for one is to abandon a cause for all," the King proclaimed.

The boy knew he should gravely considered the King's words, but all he could think of was the warm hand that had tenderly treated his wounds;

the calloused fingers that had raised him up every time he had fallen;

the life that had slipped through his fingers, leaving his own cold and grasping for something no longer there.

—-

The King had expected the second trial to break the boy, but was pleased to find this not the case. Entertainment such as this was rare, yet unfortunately, the time for games was drawing to a close. With this third trial, the boy's absurd dreams must be put to rest.

From a case of glass he drew a bronze amulet, tethered to a string of leather.

—-

"So consumed are you with others, that I have tailored this last trial specifically to you. Place that cursed amulet around your neck, and from this day forward, the burdens of others will always be carried upon your back. Grieve in their stead, and bear the weight of their pain for them. Though be warned: This is too much for any one man. It will continue until the day it breaks you, and then not even your soul shall remain."

The King had no true understanding of sacrifice, so untouched was he by love or devotion to any but himself, so he never dreamed the boy would accept this challenge. With his refusal, the boy would make himself known as a coward, be labeled as weak, and the King's rule would remain unchallenged.

The boy, however, was not afraid but astonished. He studied the King, searching for signs of deception, unable to believe his good fortune. It was his own sins that had haunted him since the start of these trials, not those of others.

Without hesitation, he pulled the twist of cord about this neck, drawings gasps from the crowd and a growl of fury from the King.

The boy braced himself, awaiting the sensation of sting or bite or tear, but he felt only the weight of the amulet's tiny, ugly bronze face. Many eyes wandered to the King, and a murmur rose like a cresting wave.

"Foolish boy!" the King howled, nearly leaping from his seat. "A King must recognize his own worth, for it is upon him that the well-being of a kingdom rests. To be willing to let yourself be brought to ruin so easily is to selfishly forsake those who need you to survive!"

It was then that the boy first saw his brother among the guards, as well as the tears that marked a path down his face. The only thing worse than knowing he caused that pain was the realization of the truth.

"It was a lie, wasn't it?" he asked, clutching the amulet at his chest.

"A worthless trinket for a worthless boy." The King looked coldly down from his throne. "You said you came here to prove your value, and through these three trials, indeed you have. My kingdom has no use for one so lacking. You will take your brother and begone from here. I banish you, so that you must wander for the rest of your days. Never again will you have a home in this land or any other."

All those present became silent at the decree. Some expected the boy to cry, others felt certain he would throw himself to the floor and beg for mercy. However, the only sound in the hall was that of a child's feet striking stone as his younger brother ran to his side.

They stood there, two boys whose faces wore not the masks of the beaten or the damned, but who stood as something stronger, something more.

And for the first time in a very long time, the King felt uncertainty for the years to come.

—-

That evening, in a quiet part of the woods, his younger brother lay tucked beneath a blanket of crisp autumn leaves. Despite the promise of winter and the empty stomachs to come, the child slept soundly, easily at peace knowing his brother was near.

The boy wished he could join him in the escape that dreams brought, but he tossed and turned fretfully. Once the moon passed overhead, he gave up on rest, and checking once more to make sure his brother was safe, began walking more deeply into the forest.

When the angel appeared, he oddly didn't feel any surprise. Life was teaching hard lessons about expectations.

"Your crystal cup did not work, angel," he said.

The angel fell in step beside him.

"You are mistaken. It worked exactly as I wished it to. It brought you to the King, did it not?"

The boy remembered the innocents who died for his choices. Here in the dark, he was haunted by the gentle eyes of his companion — eyes which had not condemned him even as he fell. He thought of the empty dirt roads that lay ahead for he and his brother.

Anger, hot and sharp, rose in his blood and stung his eyes. Before he was aware of it, he had the angel in his grasp.

"Is this what you wanted?! You lied to me! You promised my destiny would be changed, that I could prove my worth!"

With no concern for the wrath he could awaken, the boy shook the angel, but the angel did not strike him down. He merely let the boy's anger burn its course. When it was over, confused and weary, the boy raised his stare, awaiting judgement, but what he saw in the blue of the angel's eyes made him stumble back with a gasp.

"You! Back then, was that—"

The angel ignored this and smiled. "You said your destiny has not been changed, that you have not proven your worth. This is untrue. Even now, whispers have taken root among the people, and despite the cold seasons ahead, they will only continue to grow."

The angel reached over and raised the amulet, which still hung from the boy's neck, on one finger.

"Wear it proudly. It is no trinket, but a crest. A symbol of a boy that is loyal to those he loves, of a boy who grieves for those he cannot save, who would sacrifice himself for others without a thought for himself."

And in the years to come, it became the symbol of not just a boy, but of a man.

Like any other, he sinned, he faltered, he was scarred and left scars upon others, but the many paths he traveled also lead to hope, to strength, to love that overcame the least favorable of odds and shattered fate's chains.

And when his final battle was fought, when he could at last lay his head down to rest, the angel was waiting to pay him welcome, to offer him that which he promised so many years ago.

"Welcome home, Dean."


End file.
